Welcome to Five O'Clock Somewhere, where it doesn't matter what time zone you're in; it's five o'clock somewhere. We'll look at rural life, especially as it happens in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, cats, sailing (particularly Etchells racing yachts), and bits of grammar and Victorian poetry.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

New Feature

Maybe it’s not so useful, but it’s kinda funWednesday evening, Pat and I dropped Tadpole off at his Boy Scout meeting, and then we went off for a hike of our own. This time, we headed up to Sandia Crest, parked the truck, and hiked south along the Crest Trail to the Kiwanis Cabin, probably a bit more than a mile. Up at the Crest, the wind was probably somewhere between 20 and 30 knots, and at more than 10,000 feet, I could really feel that I was getting in some great altitude training. As the sun descended toward the horizon, creating vivid red and orange glows through all the dust that the wind has kicked up over the past couple of days, the scene was spectacular – and once again, I mentally kicked myself for forgetting the camera yet another time.By the time we got back to the truck, darkness was descending, but it wasn’t total darkness, because the moon was shining brightly. Was it full? Maybe, but I didn’t think so, since it was already up before the sun went down – I guessed it was a couple of days short of full.So I found a found a service that shows exactly what phase the moon is actually in. That’s it over there on the left, where the poll used to be. I’ll probably still be putting in a poll from time to time, but for now, I don’t have any earth-shaking questions that need to be asked. So for now, the moon phase is more useful, and even when I do put in a poll, the moon phase is going to be ahead of it.

This feature is great. It's much easier than looking out the window. Did you know that like fish, many reptiles and small animals won't come out when the moon is large? It is thought that this is instinctive, and done to prevent predators from seeing them on bright nights.